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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Facebook Status Messages "is"....

"Hey, whats wrong with your English now??""Why, what happened?""Well, don't you see an 'is' after message's'? Where did that come from? ""Hmmm... good point!!!"

One interesting thing that I found lately, and constantly amuses me from time to time is the Facebook status, and how people use them (including me)... I have been using Facebook for more than 6 months now, but for the past few weeks (or maybe a month), I have started using Facebook more frequently than ever - especially when you are sitting idle in 5 AM in the morning and have nothing better to do.... There are applications etc which people continuously put (or should I call install) on their profile, but the status messages are the most interesting thing that I have started noticing....

I remember till last year, Facebook forced everyone to update their status messages starting with the word "is"... And I noticed a lot of funny usage of the word "is" - and, obviously, when you force something like that, they are bound to be grammatically incorrect in large numbers - but none the less, they were funny... Something like " 'Facebook user is' got really drunk last night and is now confused to why there is an "is" after my name before the text box." Even funnier: "Facebook user is' (ignore the 'is') got really drunk last night and is now confused to why there is an "is" after my name before the text box."

Take another example: "John Smith is wanting ice cream."

There have been a few groups which tried to voice their "concerns". A description of such a group:

Is it not totally bloody annoying that you have to be 'IS' every time you update you status? I don't want to say 'Joe IS thinking' or 'Joe IS wanting' or 'Joe IS feeling', or have to make that grammatical check in my head every time I update my status, thinking, oh no, I can't say it like it IS, because the 'IS' IS omnipresent.

Another good one:

For those of us who like updating our status on Facebook, there is always one obstacle: the word 'is'. What if you wanted to say:"Jonathan hates snow"?Unfortunately, you are forced to say:"Jonathan is thinking he hates the snow"What if you wanted to say "Mary ate your mom". OOPS! You can't do that! You have to say something like "Mary is currently eating your mom".

And finally, Facebook developers listened to the users' plea and made the notorious word "is" an optional thing. But, I still like to make use of the word whenever I update my status... It exercises my brain to figure out something which will go well with the word...

Also, people do put loads of funny status messages on their profile - take for example - a friend of mine has made it daily habit to write something exceedingly stupid, yet funny, everyday. Like, for example: " 'Facebook user'... Parachute for sale - used once, never opened, small stain". Well, Facebook developers did think of an innovative way to keep the users amused and busy :)

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